Rectum Erratum

“TEN, fifteen,” they said. “Twenty tops. More than that would be a cause for concern.” My friends were troubled, they actually gave me a straight-men-as-friends quota.

Between a hetero’s world that is so square it could well be a box and a homey’s universe that reeks Dolce & Gabbana (and best seen under rose-tinted Ray Ban aviators), I am allowed, as told, only twenty straight guy friends. But I’ve got a loadful, a cadre that could make a whole battalion and wage war against acid washed jeans and Prescripto imitation parfums. So I am under fraught observation.

Though I have assured my lovely bevy of she-men that “it ain’t a deal, really” it wasn’t enough to unfurrow the brows in orbit of brusko pinkies, divine divas and dandy dudettes (yes, the fab protagonists of the great sexual divide). My sistahs were fidgety—obviously anxious despite vicious doses of dedma on my part and lots of inquisitive, prodding eyes on theirs—that a straddling to the ‘other other side’ was imminent.

Their collective quip was nothing short of sour and spicy—from the impudent “Oh my, we’re getting a bit too butch, aren’t we?” to the insolent “Isn’t it a little too late for a cross-over?” to the sarcastic “Balls are for lickin’, not for dribblin’.”

While I’m an all out pinkie who eats and breathes gaiety and gayness (I suspect my fart’s mist is actually fuchsia), not all my friends are. I actually navigate in mixed circle.

Among PLUs (People Like Us) this is either applauded as a revered sign of conquest—nothing short of emancipating freedom—an ‘inter-species’ harmony, or, scorned as a dubious attempt for a free locker room peepshow or a prelude to an opportunist’s shag—drunken or otherwise.

I know, there is a line that separates mankind from men-of-my-kind. No, not a thin, vanishing line as some gender optimists would profess, but a line so bold and heavy it could replace the Ped Xing grid in this gay Metro painted Barbie pink and baby blue. And just like a confused pedestrian who would dare tread the line beyond the strict boundary, this emphatic, definitive line poses clear and present danger.

It cuts both ways.

Straights are infamous for their lack of flexibility when thrown into a bin of pink men. Picture this: A straight guy sighted with a gay man in tow would be suspected of extra ‘friendly’ liaisons, more so if he’s seen within a ten-kilometer radius from a commercial mall, then the words ‘Kept Boy’ would be stamped to his forehead. Find a guy who brandishes himself with simple hygiene and he is deemed vain, if he uses more than soap and water then he is cast under suspicion. Sordid attempts to rectify this notion have been made in the past, but the closest marketing stooges can do were to sire a dude named David Beckham and coin the word ‘metrosexual’ to justify an excuse.

Interestingly enough, a gay man swarming in the soup of heterosexual company is no different.

Find a lone gay guy in a drinking session with a pack of straight men and he is either dick-savvy or he just got paid. A sore thumb standout among drunken men is not a man of virtue but a gay guy with budget.

The two poles are as foreign and distant as north is to south. Cynics say the only thing that connects the dots is the stuff that you take out from an ATM machine. Should a need for one from the other arises, a hetero in need would readily pull down his pants while a gay man would readily pull out his wallet.

Ugh.

If these contentions were true, then why am I sharing a nonchalant ritual of relief (that and only that) in the Men’s Room with my posse of straight friends? How can I share with them a wet sauna garbed only with a face towel (which is even restricted in the hot pool)? And though I cannot play basketball, why do they make up my cheering committee when I feebly dribble and shoot the ball to a missed basket (no, it’s not my long, endless legs or my joggling man boobs)?

Bringing me to a Carrie Bradshaw moment—I couldn’t help but wonder, could these parallel worlds, separate and different, coalesce in harmony?

Yes, Miss Bradshaw, and you don’t need sistah Stanford Blatch and bitchboy Anthony Morentino to prove it.

One word: respect.

The thing is, I know my limitations as their gay guy friend and they know theirs.

I banish their rabid fear that gay men are man-eaters by simply being one of the boys. And just like little Miss Carrie, I look beyond what Mr. Big literally means.
In the gym where half of the buffies are pinkies, I exchange beauty tips as much as I get dietary supplement advice from both sides. I’ve learned the metabolic benefits of taking extra virgin oil as a fat burner from the straights, in the same manner that I acquire the meritorious sexual advantages of olive oil from the ‘backburners’ (topically applied, of course).

I don’t ask about my straight friends’ sexual conquests, although I always get an earful of their locker room shag inventory. In return, they don’t pry to ask me who among PLUs have recently made the big switch from top to bottom (Rectum erratum, no less), who ‘upgraded’ from part time, curious bisexual to full-pledged dick worshipper, and who among the gym instructors are actually hiding in their mirror-balled-boa-feathered shell.

Sink this in: True friendship wanders without direction, it navigates without boundaries. Someday, I hope, we will all live, love and learn without self-righteous rules, restrictive borders and yes, even priggish quotas.

In the meantime, my straight friends are still cheering me on the hardcourt, as for my bevy of pinkie chums, let me just say we’re learning some new trick to do with balls. Hehe.